A Las Vegas woman's dreams of becoming a mother were shattered when a pharmacy made a devastating medication error, mistakenly giving her abortion pills instead of the vital in vitro fertilization (IVF) medication she needed in 2019. Timika Thomas, a mother of four who had previously undergone a procedure to remove her fallopian tubes, endured excruciating pain and a profound loss when the mix-up occurred.
Timika Thomas has now recalled the distressing ordeal that began when she experienced severe cramping after taking what she believed were prescribed vaginal suppositories.
She recounted to KLAS, "I started cramping really bad… My cramping went beyond that… It was extreme. It was painful." Little did she know that she had mistakenly taken Misoprostol, a medication used for abortions, instead of her doctor-prescribed IVF medication.
Thomas took two doses of the wrong medication before realizing the grave error. "The first thing I read is it’s used for abortions," she said, adding, "They just killed my baby… Both my babies, because I transferred two embryos."
Investigations into the incident revealed that the fatal mistake was the result of a chain of errors involving two technicians and two pharmacists. One technician misunderstood the generic name for the brand prescribed by Thomas' doctor and entered the incorrect name into the prescription. A pharmacist failed to spot the error, and another did not provide proper counseling to Thomas when she collected the pills.
Thomas expressed her frustration, saying, "It [the error] would have been caught because then they would have had to have the medicine in their hand, and they would have said, 'Oh, this is Misoprostol or Cytotek, have you taken this before?' And I would have said, 'No.'"
Following Thomas' complaint to the Nevada State Board of Pharmacy, the two pharmacists responsible faced fines and provisional license suspensions. CVS, the pharmacy chain involved, was also fined the maximum statutory penalty of $10,000.
In a statement, CVS expressed regret for the incident, saying, "We’ve apologized to our patient for the prescription incident that occurred in 2019 and have cooperated with the Nevada Board of Pharmacy in this matter."
They emphasized their commitment to patient safety and stated, "Prescription errors are very rare, but if one does occur, we take steps to learn from it in order to continuously improve quality and patient safety."
However, for Thomas and her family, the pain remains fresh even four years later. "All I got was a sorry. It will never be good enough."
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